Herefordshire Archaeology unpublished report series

An archaeological investigation was undertaken on land between Sutton Walls Hillfort and the river Lugg in the parish of Sutton St. Michael. The fieldwork included landscape and geophysical survey, together with limited archaeological excavations in three locations, between 11th and 15th October 1999. The project was designed to meet both research and conservation requirements and to provide an arresting subject for a program within Series 7 of Channel 4's Time Team. It's primary aim was to obtain information on the nature, status, survival, condition and at least relative chronology of selected sites. These sites were located within an area traditionally connected with King Offa of Merica and in particular with a royal 'vill' or palace complex, used by his court when visiting Herefordshire. It was here, according to medieval Lives of St. Ethelbery, that Offa has this East Anglian King murdered in 794AD. A trench located the stone foundations and lower wall courses of a building apparently occupied in the twelfth century. In the same trench were found demolition deposits from another stone building nearby, possibly an earlier structure of Anglo-Saxon date. I the third of the Freen's Court excavation trenches were found stone post-pads of successive (medieval and nineteenth century) aisled barns. Beneath these remains were revealed traces of an earlier, more massive, aisled building. These features included a substantial stone packed foundation for an aisle-pier, and an extensive burn deposit containing abundant pottery. This latter deposit clearly derived from the destruction of the building in the late 12th century.

Eardisland Oral History Society proposed a study of the landscape in and around Burton Court. This research would examine a number of specific earthwork features and relate them to the wider landscape. Map regression and documentary research would be undertaken together with limited field survey, geophysics and trial excavation. Herefordshire Archaeology were asked to advise on the proposals and in this capacity undertook a field visit with the property owners and members of Eardisland Oral History Society. This report describes the features / areas investigated as part of the field visit and documents proposals for further study.

In response to a Countryside Stewardship Application a site visit was made to Mounboon Farm near Carey. The land had become very overgrown particularly with bracken. The current owner has mown much of the bracken and removed much of the dead timber. This revealed a series of strip lynchets, a deep holloway connecting the farm to the village of Carey and the stone footings from a possible mill with a system of weirs. A brief documentary search located an area within the study area which had been used as a musket, and later rifle range, originating from the Napoleonic era.

In response to a Countryside Stewardship Application a site visit was made to a small farm in the Dulas valley. Many of the fields on the southern side of the valley are steeply sloping and too small for modern machinery. As a consequence they have remained under permanent Pasture and / or orchard. During the site visit a series of levelled platforms were noted. These comprised three circular depressions approximately 3m in diameter and cut into the natural hillslope. Recent mole activity within these depressions revealed a substantial quantity of charcoal and burned clay associated with these structures. Further examples of this monument type were identified during subsequent visits to the site. These types of structure have been identified as post-medieval field kilns and whilst once very common, now seldom survive as extant earthworks due to increased pressure on agricultural land. Evidence for the remains of a fulling mill were also noted in the bank of the Dulas Brook nearby. All features were recorded photographically and by plane table survey. A survey of the farmhouse was carried out prior to building works. The house is listed as a 18th century farmhouse. However, elements survive within the timber frame to suggest earlier origins. The northern bay contains the remains of a cruck frame, cut off at first floor height, whilst the central room comprises a 16th or early 17th century reception room with richly chamfered, heavy timbering and with a very fine fireplace. At first floor level evidence for a dormer type gable survives and is thought to be contemporary with the house frame.

The earthwork enclosure, is situated on the edge of a near vertical scarp slope approximately 225m above sea level. It had been obscured by woodland and had no therefore been note from the air or otherwise recorded. The enclosure is formed by a semi-circular earthen bank, (surviving to a height of 2m at its northern end, with narrow external ditch and is approximately 140m long and 75m wide. The earthworks decrease in height and clarity as they continue southwards. The earthworks were surveyed using a plane table and a sample area was subjected to a Magnetometery survey. On the basis of the topographic and geophysical data, three trail trenches were excavated. Whilst all three trenches were excavated to bedrock, nothing o archaeological significance was encountered. More detailed observations of the bank and ditch strongly suggest that the monument was never completed and that construction work was suddenly halted, possibly due to a misalignment of one section of the bank making the enclosure indefensible.

Village hall construction within Longtown. Six 30m square grids were surveyed in an area 60m wide by 90m long using a Geoscan RM15 Resistivity Meter with PA5 electrode array. The area under investigation was under permanent pasture and contained a number of subtle earthworks. The results revealed that the earthworks were related to remains of structures and boundaries. A two cell rectangular structure, not related to the earthworks, was also revealed.

Excavations carried out by Herefordshire Archaeology between 2001 and 2003 provided a considerable amount of information about the buildings. The 2001 excavations allowed the clarification of a sequence of construction from the Later 16th Century to the Early to Mid 18th Century, and many details of construction were elucidated.The 2002 excavations were designed to explore the now-vanished buildings to the east and west of the mansion. The excavations provided further evidence of the former existence of a small Medieval fortified manor to the west of the house. Also, a wall foundation was discovered to the west of the western side of the 1820s bastioned terrace, that may have originally formed part of the standing structure of the Medieval castle. Interpretation of the main sequence was rendered more complex by the results of dendrochronolgical study on the standing building, which showed that roof timbers in all the surviving ranges of the main house were put in place in 1662-3. Stylistically the mansion is early 17th Century in date. The simplest explanation of the wall foundations revealed to the west of this building is that they derive from a complex of Medieval structures that was substantially reworked in the 16th Century, before being demolished in the 17th Century. The 2003 excavations concentrated on the area to the west of the house, including evidence for formal gardens.

Herefordshire Archaeology undertook a woodland survey in partnership with the Forestry Commission. A rapid walk over survey was carried out in the wood concerned. A hand held G.P.S unit was used to record the location of features encountered. Structures were recorded within the woodland that illustrate the intensive use of the woodland resource in the late and post medieval periods, saw pits, charcoal burning platforms, quarries and woodland management boundaries were observed. Evidence for prehistoric land use was also registered in the form of a double ditched enclosure from which a series of boundaries could be traced. A possible barrow or cairn was also noted. It is clear that much of the woodland included in this survey has been intensively managed for many centuries. However some areas provide glimpses into medieval and prehistoric agricultural practices which have only been preserved as upstanding features because they have been covered in woodland.

Herefordshire Archaeology undertook a survey of the woodlands on the Moor Estate as part of a pilot study in partnership with the Forestry Commission in 2002. A rapid walk over survey was carried out in the woodland concerned. A hand held G.P.S unit was used to record the location of features encountered. Structures were recorded within 6 areas of woodland that illustrate the intensive use of the woodland resource in the late and post medieval periods.

Herefordshire Archaeology undertook a survey which formed part of the Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty survey. A rapid walk over survey was carried out in the woodland concerned. A hand held G.P.S unit was used to record the location of features encountered. The survey identified features associated with most industries commonly associated with woodland. Evidence of quarrying, charcoal burning, saw pits and woodland management boundaries were recorded. In addition to these features large areas of ridge and furrow was recorded particularly on the western side of the main ridge of Halesend Wood. Associated with this were numbers of field lynchets, headlands and field banks. This suggests that much of this area was under intensive arable cultivation during the medieval period.